Probing Fukushima’s Invisible Legacy, Misa Yasumiishi, UBNow

It was the summer of 2016 — five years after an earthquake
and tsunami had caused three nuclear reactors to melt down at the
Fukushima Daiichi Plant in Japan.

Yasumiishi — a UB PhD student — had returned to the
country to investigate the accident’s lingering effects. With
a team from the University of Tokyo, she collected more than 400
soil samples from lands that were once a family farm. Her goal: to
analyze how much radioactive material remained in the ground to
quantify an invisible threat.

“Unlike a flood or a fire, a nuclear disaster has a very
unique or peculiar side to it,” Yasumiishi says. “You
cannot see radiation. It may be there or it may not be there
— you cannot know this unless you measure it. It’s an
invisible threat. It creates a feeling of distress and
anxiety."